Book Review: Life in the Medieval Town
If you’ve ever wondered what everyday life in a medieval English town actually felt like – the noise, the smells, the chaos, the rules, the fun – Kathryn Warner’s Life in the Medieval Town is an absolute treat.
Warner has this brilliant way of dropping you right into the streets of the 13th and 14th centuries, and honestly, it’s so vivid you can almost hear the pigs trotting past and the church bells ringing (there were a lot of bells). What’s great is that this isn’t a dry history lesson – it’s packed with quirky, funny and sometimes shocking details that make medieval life feel wonderfully real.
One of the best parts is how she shows just how alive and crowded towns were. We meet nightwalkers sneaking past curfew, bakers getting dragged through the streets for underweight loaves, and neighbours arguing about blocked windows and smelly privies. And the pigs… so many pigs. Wandering everywhere. Eating chickens. Occasionally causing mayhem.
The book also gives you a great sense of the mix of people in these towns – locals, foreigners, craftsmen, apprentices, minstrels, friars, conmen, you name it. Warner has dug up loads of real names and real stories from court records, which makes everything feel personal rather than abstract.
The sections on travel and daily routines are especially fun – imagine walking 20–30 miles a day to get anywhere, or trying to keep warm at night with a tallow candle that might burn your house down. Food lovers will enjoy the glimpses of medieval cooking too: garlic sauces, almond milk, pies on street corners, and bread types with names like “paindemaigne” and “simnel”.
What really makes the book shine is how readable it is. You don’t need any background in medieval history to enjoy it. Warner manages to balance humour with detail, and you come away feeling like you’ve genuinely stepped into another world – one that’s noisy, smelly, dangerous, but also full of community, colour and character.
In short: totally engaging, full of brilliant nuggets, and perfect if you want medieval life explained in a way that’s fun, human and surprisingly relatable.
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